Of Memories and Potters
by Rufi
Summary: Snape thinks of memories, Potters, and how much both have changed.


There was wet little dew drops covering the grass in a tightly knit web, making it impossible to sit without getting your bum sodden, and a cold breeze that blew through the densest of bushes, but it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting an Outstanding mark on the test. Of course, he had just taken said test, and was still mulling over the answers he had written— making sure he'd written everything right and answered everything to the fullest extent— though he could do nothing about it if he had forgotten something. He felt it was justified, though, seeing as they were the O.W.L. tests and that if he should fail it would affect the very near future, as well as the not so near.

As he read the paper a third time, snorting through his large nose as he fought to get his stringy hair up and out of his face, he stood up from his little hidey hole behind the bushes and started walking across campus. His thin-fingered hand fell from his greasy hair to his wand, stored securely in his pocket, and grasped it in preparation for the imminent attack.

"All right, Snivellus?"

And that was his cue. He whipped out his wand, but it was too late. He was on the ground, panting heavily, before he'd even gotten his wand at the ready. Everyone was laughing, he knew they were. He could hear them thinking jeering remarks and laughing at his plight, and he saw the cruel smirk on that stupid Potter's face. Potter was calm and collected, standing above him, looking down at him, and laughing through his nose.

He could do that— laugh through his nose— because it didn't sound like an elephant trumpeting. He had a tendency to tell Snape— Snivellus— that fact every waking moment of the day.

Snape had passed the Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. with his wanted high mark, but it didn't matter. He still ended up teaching potions to a bunch of snot-nosed children. At least he hadn't been a snot-nosed potions student. Big nosed; yes, but snot-nosed? Thank heavens the answer was no.

And even though he had gotten out of school and away from Potter, and even though Potter had died, Snape still had to deal with him. His son was still alive, and even more popular with an even more inflated ego than his father. It was Potter mach two. Potter plus. It was the next generation of Snape torture.

Every day Potter Jr. was in his Potions class, he had that same smirk aimed at him, with that same calm and collected air. He looked so innocent, the Potter brat did, but he was guilty. Snape didn't even have to hear Potter's thoughts to figure that out. It was written so plainly on his face, carved directly onto his forehead. A blind man could see the blame etched into the idiot Potter boy's face.

"Professor; are you all right?"

It was the Potter brat, standing at his desk after class. He'd assigned the boy detention for some reason, most likely for being too much like his father.

Snape whipped out his wand, and his hand was halfway in the air when the boy spoke again.

"Wait, Professor!" he said, "I'm here for Occlumency, not detention."

Snape paused, obviously surprised at his own empty-headedness. He brought his wand down and placed it back in his pocket. He starred down at Potter, who looked back at him with a different sort of innocent face; one that didn't have guilt hidden beneath it.

Professor Snape turned away from Potter and towards the Pensieve, preparing to rid himself of any incriminating memories, but as he moved his wand to his hand, he couldn't come up with any reason why he'd mind Potter seeing his past. This Potter, the new and improved Potter, was not nearly as threatening as his father had been. After all, he's just a boy; a snot-nosed Potions student.

Much later, when Snape and Potter finally got over many of their perceived and totally false ideas of each other, Snape had no problem showing Potter his memories. Or rather, Severus didn't mind taking a trip with Harry into a Pensieve filled with old memories.


End file.
